Free The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers by Michael Newton Page B

disappear entirely, clearly some psychological motive for the crimes.
    waiting for a legal declaration of death to free up life South African Daisy De Melker murdered her stepchil-insurance benefits.
    dren in a misguided effort to gain more attention from Black widows, finally, for all the ink and paper her husband. Other maternal child killers, like MARY-spent describing their murders as “quiet” and “gen-BETH TINNING, apparently suffer from MUNCHAUSEN’S
    tle,” rank among the most cold-blooded killers on SYNDROME BY PROXY—essentially a pathological crav-record. The very calculation of their crimes may help ing for the attention and sympathy they receive during explain why three of the four women executed in tragic times.
    America since 1976 are ranked in this category. Others Like their web-spinning namesake, black widows are presently sentenced to death in North Carolina frequently use poison to dispatch their mates and par-and Texas.
    ents, siblings, and assorted other relatives. Where chil-See also “BLUEBEARD” KILLERS; MODUS OPERANDI; dren are concerned, asphyxiation is a killing method MOTIVES; WEAPONS
    favored by the “gentle” sex. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule. Gunshot wounds defy classification as death from natural causes, but a shooting may be
    “BLUEBEARD” Killers: Male serial-killer type staged to look like suicide or accidental death, a tactic A generic term for any man who murders a series of favored by Barbara Stager in North Carolina. Burly wives or fiancées, this subgroup of serial murder ironi-BELLE GUNNESS not only bludgeoned, but sometimes cally derives its popular nickname from a 15th-century 22

    BOLBER-PETRILLO-FAVATO Murder Ring
    slayer of children. French nobleman GILLES DE RAIS was rule out any sexual or psychological motive in such the original “Bluebeard,” so called after the blue-black cases, however. Prolific Bluebeard Harry Powers told color of his facial hair, but any link between this kind of authorities in West Virginia that watching victims die in murder and sadistic pedophilia has long since been lost.
    his homemade gas chamber “beat any cat house I was Years after Gilles was executed, a popular folk tale ever in.” Another American Bluebeard who murdered at hung the nickname on the fictional Chevalier Raoul, least seven wives, James Watson, was discovered on whose seventh wife found the corpses of her six mur-arrest to be a hermaphrodite (possessing both male and dered predecessors in a room her husband forbade her female genitalia). We can only imagine what impact the to enter.
    deformity had on his numerous wedding nights, but it Most real-life Bluebeards, in the mold of JOHANN
    surely distorted his outlook on women and sex.
    HOCH and HENRI LANDRU, woo and slay their female vic-See also “BLACK WIDOWS”; MOTIVES
    tims in pursuit of some material reward, such as inheritance or life insurance. Frequently, they practice bigamy and fraud, along with other mercenary crimes, before BOLBER-PETRILLO-FAVATO Murder Ring
    they ultimately find the nerve to kill. It would be rash to America’s most prolific team of killers-for-profit were active in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, during the 1930s, claiming an estimated 30 to 50 victims before the ring’s various members were apprehended. Students of the case, in retrospect, are prone to cite the gang’s activities as evidence that modern homicide statistics may be woefully inaccurate. If 20,000 murders are reported in a given year, they say, it is entirely possible that 20,000
    more go unreported, overlooked by the authorities.
    The basic murder method was conceived in 1932, by Dr. Morris Bolber and his good friend, Paul Petrillo.
    After one of Bolber’s female patients aired complaints about her husband’s infidelity, the doctor and Petrillo planned for Paul to woo the lonely lady, gaining her cooperation in a plan to kill her wayward spouse and split $10,000 in insurance benefits. The victim, Anthony